In the Kingdom of Upside Down

At 3 a.m., rain clouds drive quickly east, leaving a vast table of stars, beneath which one walks, breathless.

The man who has no church anymore pauses by the honeysuckle to breathe, slowly and deeply.

There are patterns to our lives, no one of which is arbitrary.

Coffee, my writing chair, and the familiar habit of rearranging words.

You seem to insist on hurting me, or at least on making space for the possibility, or likelihood, in response to which I try to open more, as if to say: all you can manage, all you can muster.

The North Star flutters, apparently over the cemetery, apparently for me.

What the world says we are is not what we are but that doesn't mean we know ourselves.

One falls to sleep imagining the upper pasture filled with daisies, neatly avoided by patient cows.

Not all writing aspires to "oh."

Part of sadness lies in knowing one's motivation, and seeing - again - the fruitless pursuit ushered to crescendo.

But I like trails, and walking companions, even if they are quiet dogs, or flitting chickadees.

Yet at the perfect moment you arrive.

Willingness heals.

There are always alternatives but not the way we think.

One wonders will there be photographs in the Kingdom of Upside Down.

Or poetry.

One longs for the expression that ends our separation from God, and ends time and space, and even the us that inevitably hurts.

Is it a decision or a sudden clarity, an insight outside of thought?

In giving - in truth - we neither end nor begin, and it is enough.

It is.